What is Cognitive Science?

What is Cognitive Science?

Cognitive science is the science of mind and behaviour.

Feature # 1:

Cognitive science study MIND and BEHAVIOR

Mental states are processes inside the brain

-          Emotions, knowledge of language, reasoning

The behaviour caused by these processes

-          Facial expression

Feature # 2:

Cognitive science is a science

-          Theories and hypothesis have to be tested

-          How? Check whether they can explain the data for experimentation and observation

Why study cognitive science?

-          Intellectual value

-          Practical value

o   Education

o   AI and technology

o   Medical Application

-          Educational value

-          Entertainment value

Methodology of Cognitive Science

Some distinct features about research methods and explanations in cognitive science

-          Brain-based explanations

-          Functional explanations

-          Interdisciplinary

-          The computation method

Brain-based explanations

The mind is explained in the terms of physical processed in the brain

How to deal with this complex system?

1)      Functional Approach

Understand the functions of different systems of the brain and see how they interact

-          Visual areas, language, emotions

2)      Inter-disciplinary Approach

Psychology – cognitive psychology, development psychology

Linguist – syntax, semantics, phonology

Neuroscience – brain stem, localization

Computer science – AI, Computer models

Philosophy – theoretical foundation

The computer model of the mind

The mind is like a computer

A distance feature of cognitive science

What is computer model?

The mind is an information processing system

Information processing is best explained by computers and symbols

Information processing in the brain neural computations involving mental representations

The computer model of the mind

The mind is like a computer

A distinctive feature of cognitive science

Mental Representations

Mental representations are symbols in the brain that have meaning or encode information

Thinking P ~ activating a mental representation that means P

Why should we accept the computational model of mind?

Some reasons:

-          Information processing does seem to be  a distinctive feature of mind

-          Mental representations are useful in explaining lots of mental phenomena

-          We can observe mental representations

Information Processing in the Mind

Perception

Acquiring real time information about the surrounding environment

Language Use

Making use of information about syntax, semantics and phonology

Reasoning

Combining different sources of information, deriving new information

Action

Making use of information in action, planning and guidance

Memory

Storing and retrieving information

They help us explain lots of things

Example: Syntactic disambiguation

Two methodologies consequences of computer model

Computer models can be built to test theories of mental processes

There are different levels of analysis for a complex information processing system.

Three levels of description

A complete understanding of a computational system has to invoke three kinds of levels:-

Task: what the system is capable of doing?

Algorithm: which computational procedures are used

Implementation: how the computations are implemented

Example:

Task: Multiplication

Algorithm: Input numbers x and y

Output numbers in row x and column y

Implementation: human beings and paper

1	2	3	4	5
2	4	6	8	10
3	6	9	12	15
4	8	12	16	20
5	10	15	20	25